PART 1:
Read Beretta’s (2014) article, “Top Ten Common Problems in Designing Effective Survey Questions.” Make sure you understand all ten problems Beretta describes – and you know how to avoid all ten problems.
Read Pew Research Center’s (no date) article, “Questionnaire Design.” Make sure you understand
open- versus closed-ended questions (the latter are what Science Buddies refers to as ‘structured questions’);
the importance of asking questions that are clear and well-specified;
what double-barreled questions and double-negatives are (and how to avoid them);
what acquiescence bias and social desirability bias are (and how to avoid them);
factors to consider in ordering your questions; and
the importance of placing demographic items last.
To appreciate the power of question wording, look at Britain Elects’ (2017) pair of tweets.
To appreciate the importance of including the least number of survey items possibles, look at cognitive psychologist, J. P. de Ruiter’s (2018) tweet.
Read Harvard University’s Program on Survey Research (2007) “Tip Sheet on Question Wording.” Make sure you understand
how to avoid technical jargon, vague or imprecise terms;
how to avoid double-barreled questions (again!);
how to avoid leading, emotional, or evocative language; and
how to use ordinal scales, reference frames, and unique answer choices that cover all response options.
Read Peters’ (no date) article, “How to Design a Survey.” Make sure you understand the differences between
categorical (also known as nominal) and
ordinal survey items (and survey responses).
TO DO DURING CLASS
Now it’s time to apply everything you’ve learned about writing survey items and write the items for your survey.
For your survey, you must write no fewer than 5 and no more than 10 items.
For your survey, you must include at least one and no more than two open-ended items (which count toward your total 5 to 10 total items per survey).
For your survey, you must include:
at least one categorical/nominal survey item and
at least one ordinal survey item.
For your survey, please include at least 2 demographic items (age, sex, race/ethnicity/income, etc). You must place them at the end (unless there’s a good reason to place them earlier), and your demographic items DO NOT count toward your total 5 to 10 total items per survey.
Save your items in a PDF. Name your PDF YourLastName_PSY-218_SurveyItems.pdf.
WHAT TO SUBMIT
Make a new discussion board post:
attach your PDF that includes your items.
In a list, explain why you wrote each item you did. In additional, explain what type of item it is (i.e., categorical vs. ordinal, likert scale, open-ended vs. close-ended)
in 200 words explain how you went about checking to make sure they didn’t include any errors as discussed in Harvard University’s Program on Survey Research (2007) “Tip Sheet on Question Wording.”
PART 2:
Read and synthesize previously published psychological science on the topic you selected.
Search Google Scholar for relevant scientific articles (using the procedure you learned in Unit 5).
Remember you can also find related articles by examining the “Cited By” tool and by examining an article’s reference list.
Find three scientific articles (via Google Scholar):
The three articles can be at any level in the Hierarchy of Scientific Evidence, and
all three articles can be at the same level in the Hierarchy of Scientific Evidence.
For the topic you’ve selected:
Read and analyze the three scientific articles you’ve found (using the procedure you learned in Unit 5).
Write one paragraph synthesizing the three articles you’ve found (using the procedure you learned in Unit 6).
Remember to synthesize the findings and not Mad Lib them; to write about behavior and phenomena, not researchers and their studies; to place each article’s in-text citation at the end of the sentence (in parentheses); and to synthesize conflicting results (e.g., using “However, ….”).
Lastly, include the three scientific articles’ full APA-style citations after your synthesized paragraph (using the procedure you learned in Unit 5).
